Calling the police.

[magician5]

I'm fortunate to live in the heart of the Washington DC area (about a mile from the Pentagon) so response time is no problem. Even if you dial 911 and hang up right away, somebody's gonna be there quickly.

But I've been watching, on cable, shows like "North Woods Law" (about law enforcement in the Maine outdoors) and "Alaska State Troopers" (gosh it's cold and far from anyplace to anyplace else) and in many cases, if you need the police, you'd better pack a lunch!

[Sharnita]

Where I grew up they were not usually that busy so a call was answered quickly but where my students grew up somebody could call about a breeak in or stabbing and it could take a long time. It really does vary.( The two communities are actually not all that far apart)

[Thipu1]

We've never had to call the police but, since we're in NYC, the response time is said to be good.  We also have a firehouse on the next block and a good hospital six blocks away. 

We feel pretty safe.

[kherbert05]

I've called the cops to report suspicious activity, I don't expect them to show up. My Sister's friend is a cop, she told us that we have to report suspicious activity to help them decide the best way to organize patrols.

[Girly]

I live in a very small town that has about 3,700 people.

The last time I called the police, it was because my husband locked the keys to our car inside the car, with our 2year old (who was sleeping), and we couldn't find our spare set.

Two cars showed up within 5 minutes and we had a great time while they worked pretty hard getting my key out.

The other interaction was when we called the cops on our creepy neighbor who was burning a dead tree in his front yard with lighter fluid which was located under a couple of other trees. We were concerned because if the other trees caught on fire, our house would have been next. Again, they were there within 5 minutes.

However, I'm FROM Cleveland, OH.

I have called the cops there to report a hit/run I saw to have them show up two hours later.  (My only interaction, other than getting pulled over for speeding!)

[Ereine]

I live in Finland, in a town of about 180 000. The country is divided into districts and I live in the main main town of one of them, the district serves 28 communities, 7 of which have their own police stations (or so says Wikipedia). I would assume that response times can be quite long in the places without police stations (though distances are short here, nothing like Lapland where the closest police can be 200 km away) but when I've needed them they've showed up reasonably fast. I've only called them once, when my neighbors were fighting and yelling about killing and I think that it didn't take much time but I was in a panic and can't remember (it wasn't a serious threat but I couldn't ignore it). Another time a drunk man passed out on the street and because you can be ill as well as drunk the emergency number was called and police were there very fast (I guess they decided that he was just drunk).

I see police most of the time when I'm in town, driving around and ambulances several times a week, I live by the major route to my part of town and we have lots of older people living here.

[sourwolf]

I grew up in a very small town of about 1,500 people.  We didn't have a police force of our own, but we did have a fire department (2 blocks from where I lived.) it was all volunteer but as far as I know the response time was pretty good.  If we called 911 it would have gone to the county PD but I have no idea what their response time would be.

Now I live in an even smaller town (@ 500) And once again the firehouse is only 2 blocks away and there is no local police. I believe the state police have an office a couple of miles outside of town but I'm not exactly sure where it is. 

[thedudeabides]

I live in a larger town for this area.  We have police at the local university, city police, county sheriffs (which includes animal control), and state police.  In town the response time is good.  In the county, it can take 20-30 minutes to get a response just due to distance.

[Gumbysqueak]

Two to three minutes. We have so many cops and such a low crime rate they will post a notice on your door if you forget to close your garage door. They also have tons of time for speeding tickets. One summer all of our driving family members were nailed. But we were speeding and drive safer now.

[mbbored]

I live near the center of a city of about 60,000 people. Response time is quick, within 5 to 10 minutes, when I've called about fireworks in the street, screaming matches at the neighbor's, a foreclosed house being vandalized.

[25wishes]

I live in a small town (1600) with no police force. In the state I live in, only about 40 or so towns/cities, out of over 200,  have their own police force. The rest is covered by the state police and they are spread VERY thin.

We do have county sheriff but I have no idea what they do. I have never heard of anyone calling them. We also have a constable. In the town report one year, his expenses for the department were around $600.

[Hmmmmm]

I live in a major metro city.  Our neghborhood pays extra to have constables patrolling so I I call them directly and it's less than 5 min. 

I've called city police a few times.  Our garage was burglarized once and city police arrived within 30 min to write up a report.  I called 911 for  medical issue for a neighbor and EMS was there in less than 5 min and police patrol car arrived shortly.  For a car accident with no injuries and we could move our cars,  they arrived within 10 min to write up the report.  Then there was the time I was stranded in a broken down cab on freeway at 2am and the cabbie would not release my suitcase from the trunk when a new cab arrived without me paying him full fare and they arrived within 2-3 min so obviously very close by.

[kherbert05]

I live in a very small town that has about 3,700 people.

The last time I called the police, it was because my husband locked the keys to our car inside the car, with our 2year old (who was sleeping), and we couldn't find our spare set.

Two cars showed up within 5 minutes and we had a great time while they worked pretty hard getting my key out.

The other interaction was when we called the cops on our creepy neighbor who was burning a dead tree in his front yard with lighter fluid which was located under a couple of other trees. We were concerned because if the other trees caught on fire, our house would have been next. Again, they were there within 5 minutes.

However, I'm FROM Cleveland, OH.

I have called the cops there to report a hit/run I saw to have them show up two hours later.  (My only interaction, other than getting pulled over for speeding!)

Again greater Houston area. My cousin accidently locked her son in the car with the keys - in August. 911 was called by one person and a locksmith by another. Both were there in less than 5 minutes J was fine.


Cousin and day care workers were prepared to break the glass if he showed any signs of distress. Car interior was already hot because Cousin had been shopping parked in a lot, and the car had not cooled off on the short drive to the center. Also the car was in direct sun at the time. It is October and my car was a furnance when I got in it after work Friday.

[Wench]

I live in compact city in the South of the UK with the population of about 200,000 and I think our police time is worryingly slow.  It took them  20 mins to respond to an emergency call I once made.  This was about three or fours years ago.  There are a lot of police on patrol in my city but they have a large population to deal with.

The problem is that there isn't really any punishment for abusing 999 calls (UK equivalent of 911).  The worse you can get is an ASBO (Anti-Social-Behavioural-Order) which means you get arrested if you flout it but don't necessarily get any further action.  On one program I watched one person with an ASBO order was not to call 999 unless it was a genuine emergency!    The police service reckons about 90% of 999 calls are non emergency but don't want to impose fining for misuse in case it prevents genuine cases from calling due to fearing getting fined.

[jpcher]

My idea on this is going to be very skewed because of one thing - I live in a suburb of Chicago.

I'm wondering why you think your thoughts are very skewed on this? (maybe the proximity to the firehouse skews things a bit?)


I, too, am in a suburb of Chicago. I'm about 3-4 blocks away from the police/fire station.

Response time has always been within the 5-minute range for emergencies.

And I've had to call them quite a few times. For some reason the corner on my street is accident prone. (2-way stop, someone blows the stop sign, big mess:) emergency responders are always Johnny-on-the spot.

Along with several medical emergencies when LDH was sick.

Then there were the times for police emergencies. I heard a neighbor and her BF screaming at each other late at night . . . BF yelling "I'm going to kill you!" I called 911. 3 squad cars were there in a flash.

There was the time that someone broke into our cars, I called 911 . . . not a true emergency but I was thanked for calling it in because they received several other calls and they were able to track the thief's movement. Police showed up at my door less than 5 minutes after the call, one team dusted my car for prints and took my report while the other squads roamed the neighborhood. Less than a 1/2 hour later I was told that they caught the guy.




So, yeah. I feel pretty darn safe and secure . . . maybe that's why my taxes are so high?